January 23, 2010 36 Comments

How NOT to Help Haiti

I’m getting tons of tweet requests to help Haiti by retweeting things. This is, in and of itself, okay.

What needs to happen, however, is that we have to be specific and point to details, and we have to give people the right kind of information to be helpful. For instance, look at Chris Messina’s post on designing hashtags for emergency response. This is useful.

Other ways? Point to blog posts or other websites that have the further detail.

Other ways? Point to charities that you are confident are helpful. For instance, I support Skip1, because I know Shelene Bryan, and know how she manages the money she receives.

But how NOT to help is to just throw out “supportive” tweets that don’t get us to take an action of some kind. Why? Because it will clutter the stream, and people will tune out of the detail.

Twitter and other social tools really help causes. We just have to wire them tightly.

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  • http://windmillperception.posterous.com/social-media-and-times-of-disaster Trudy

    Thank you. I blogged about something similar because I saw many tweets and actions that people were doing to make themselves feel better and there are two sets of actions that occur…tweets to make themselves feel better and tweets that can actually lead to the people of Haiti feeling better. I realize that some people need to feel better in order to commit to action but they need to actually commit to some sort of action as well. Great post.

  • http://broadcasting-brain.com Mark Dykeman

    /rant on

    I'm sorry to say that I find myself tuning out all of the Haiti related Tweets for precisely the same reasons that you list in your post. I know it's an important issue, I know there are many ways to help, and I also believe that a lot of people are working hard to help the people of Haiti. However, I don't care about live-tweeted Haitian benefit programming or to know what various celebrities are doing during said benefits. To me, that detracts from the problem as the masses descend into Kumbayaland amongst clouds of self-congratulatory, meaningless gestures which don't get the aid to Haiti any faster. It's a communal experience that makes the participants feel good but, again, doesn't put food, medicine, clothing, reconstruction materials, or anything tangibly useful into the hands of those who really need it.

    I appreciate the fact that you're making this statement.

    /rant off

  • http://broadcasting-brain.com Mark Dykeman

    /rant on

    I'm sorry to say that I find myself tuning out all of the Haiti related Tweets for precisely the same reasons that you list in your post. I know it's an important issue, I know there are many ways to help, and I also believe that a lot of people are working hard to help the people of Haiti. However, I don't care about live-tweeted Haitian benefit programming or to know what various celebrities are doing during said benefits. To me, that detracts from the problem as the masses descend into Kumbayaland amongst clouds of self-congratulatory, meaningless gestures which don't get the aid to Haiti any faster. It's a communal experience that makes the participants feel good but, again, doesn't put food, medicine, clothing, reconstruction materials, or anything tangibly useful into the hands of those who really need it.

    I appreciate the fact that you're making this statement.

    /rant off

  • http://tomnotes.blogspot.com tmurphy

    An aspect of the Haiti related tweets that I found to be unhelpful was the special pleading that armchair quaterbacks were making of aid-workers on the ground. In particulary tweets asking ATCs to allow certain aid organizations to jump the queue to get into Haiti because these people were clearly important so therefore other aspects of the rescue mission weren't. I challenge these people in the comfort of their armchairs to get a pen and paper and to think a little for a little while and then write down all the things that have to happen to get aid to those in need, all the equipment movements that have to be co-ordinated, all the people and groups that have to be organized, all the transport that has to be routed, all the supplies that have to be staged and so on. Then there are all the personal issues that have to be taken care of so that the rescuers don't need rescuing themselves. Then factor into this vast equation with ever-changing real-time variables the knowledge that very real people just like you and me have to work enormously long hours in the most horrendous conditions and then see if they still want to be a smart-arse know-it-alls. Alternatively, instead of sending inane and critical tweets, they could perhaps actually try and find some way, any way, to not only help the Haitians but also help the people who are trying to help the Haitians.

  • megfowler

    Hey Chris — I totally appreciate you making this point, and that's exactly why I ended up writing a blog post about, and linking to an organization that I could confidently say would send 100% of the funds they raised for Haiti to the people of Haiti. They were there before everything fell apart (for 30 years, with two orphanages and a hospital), and they'll be there after. They already have a relationship with the people they will be helping, and most importantly, their books are wide open for the public to see. Those are the things that matter to me when I give, so I was happy to point people to them.

  • http://kengaylord.wordpress.com/ kengaylord

    Thank you for this post. Repetative tweets that say we need to help Haiti are like telling us to do something without knowing how to do it. And in the end nothing is accomplished, the people of Haiti are no better off, and everyone is frustrated with their cluttered Twitter stream.

  • hackmanj

    Chris – you make some important points here. I think it will be essential for people to also start to research NGO's that will make a difference after the initial push is over. The Redcross is great at disaster relief and organizations like Rotary, The Wheelchair Foundation and others are important in the next phase. It is essential that you check out or know the organizations you are supporting. The ratio of where the money goes is extremely important. I believe this is why we tend to be very loyal to charities we observe closely and vet carefully.

  • http://www.yukiba.com/ Travel

    Maybe Twitter is just leaping a bit out of their field..

  • http://jorge-delgado.com/blog Jorge Delgado

    I agree with Chris…we should point people directly to charities…

    Talk later
    Jorge

  • http://twitter.com/EdithO EdithO

    I agree it's more beneficial to tweet a link to a charity or organization providing help on the ground, directly or indirectly, than to just do purely 'aspirational' tweets with no actionable links; although in some cases, aspiration may come first, and action will follow; your post hopefully will help more in the twitterverse move from aspiration to action. Personally, I tweeted earlier (and last night) the link to https://hopeforhaitinow.org, including that I had made a donation (since I think people need to step forward with some kind of tangible commitment, to influence their peers to do the same), as I have done for another Haiti relief organization earlier in the week. Some people may be turned off by the Hollywood extravaganza aspect (although I'm not) but if the organization's FAQ's are to be belived, 100% of donations they collect go direct to serving people in need, and they direct the funds the collect to some fairly well known organizations, albeit not necessarily without controversy. The FAQs are located at: https://hopeforhaitinow.org/FAQ.asp. They are also encouraging people to use hastag #igave, which may be seen as self-fulfilling, but it is a statement of action, not only aspiration. The importance of moving aspiration to action counts for all kinds of crises and issues of importance in society, and you are doing an important service to challenge people to use the power of twitter to accomplish even more.

  • Steve Fisher

    Hey Chris,
    In the interest of pointing folks to a helpful web front end (both in terms getting/offering information and donating funds) I'd like to refer folks to this site http://haiti.ushahidi.com/
    and because the your readers are hip to this mode of communication I would offer their blog as well for detail.
    http://blog.ushahidi.com/
    Truly a remarkable effort, for a tragedy that needs every hand to help.

  • marilynpratt

    Crisis Commons is a volunteer legion of technologists meeting virtually and live at CrisisCamps. There latest endeavor is to attempt to provide aid to the people of Haiti through the use of technology: http://www.crisiscommons.org/about

    The Crisis Commons Wiki contains a number of practical, actionable tasks that anyone with a desktop or laptop can help do. It is a clearinghouse for information projects being created by volunteers wishing to participate remotely using technology.
    http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Main_Page
    The wiki page for some labor intensive simple tasks is found here:
    http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Simple_Tasks…

  • marilynpratt

    Thank you for taking a stand on how to “wire tightly”. Some of us (self included) with the best intentions to help fail to evangelize a cause properly because, as you say, we fail to provide clear actionable tasks. The hashtag project Chris Messina cites in his blog is part of a larger set of Haiti-oriented technology driven projects found here on <a href=”<a href=” http://crisiscommons.org/“ target=”_blank”> CrisisCommons .
    The wiki they have published there has a series of simple tasks that anyone with a desktop or laptop can perform to help. Called Simple Tasks Anyone Can Do they provide opportunities to participate that are more than just flag waving.
    And Chris Messina and others with technical skills or critique can help drive good intentions to purposeful, productive results.

  • Pingback: Haiti Earthquake Victims: How To Help « Technical and Marketing Communication: Content for a Convergent World

  • jumblerant

    Thanks for the blog. I only just joined #haiti because I saw just how many 'get well soon #haiti' messages were flying around and wanted to wait for those people to be distraceted by a ball of yarn…

    Read about Team Rubicon; ex-marines and EMTs on the ground under their own steam and dollar. Doing the world of good. http://bit.ly/8TWUBw

    Their homepage is http://blog.teamrubiconhaiti.org/

  • julito77

    This is an interesting post and speaks to how you tweet with purpose. We were involved in helping Univision share its efforts and calls to action for its very successful “Unidos por Haití” (United for Haiti) program last night, which was broadcast in the US and 13 other countries in North and Latin America. People felt compelled to share the calls to action on Twitter and also felt compelled to discuss the benefit show with others on Twitter. The result was that for a group of people watching the show, they felt connected by following the #unidoshaiti stream and contributing. After a certain point, individual people will make their own of what they want to do with Twitter. Very hard to tell them what not to do after the connections get stronger and stronger, since everyone has their own personality and style on Twitter. It was an amazing event that touched the hearts of people who helped to spread the call to action.

  • Joe

    Google Haiti images 2009. You will find Haiti looks the same. They have no garbage programs ,thats how they live.Dont waste your time or money.

  • Randy

    Your right ! Somebody sees what I see also..

    Thanks

  • mea

    I think you may have stumbled onto some facts but you do see the need to help .

  • http://marianlibrarian.com Marian Schembari

    I'd take support tweets over no tweets any day.

  • http://mydarabell.com/ Dara Bell

    Absulutely Chris this is the best advice I have heard. To act emotionally and not with a reasoned directed response. For example Doctors Without Borders are the key NGO to Twitter search on info as they are deploying aid or helping governments deploy aid. I would advise people to avoid messages for money that do not involved Skip 1 or the two NGO involved.

    I am little confused with some the first few comments, this is we can do nothing argument at the complete other end of spectrum which can lead to powerless if indulged in.

  • http://www.eatingdisorderrecovery.com/ Joanna

    Excellent points. Tweet if your tweet is part of a specific solution.
    I think we all know now that our hearts are breaking for the Haitian people, and we want to help.
    It's time to move into work mode by giving money, merchandise or skills and helping others to do the same. And it's also time to be still when we are not part of an active solution. We certainly can keep our prayers going in the stillness.

  • http://robdyson.posterous.com/ Rob Dyson

    Thanks Chris – also key are social media ways of microvolunteering and empowering “us” to be the eyes and tap-tapping fingers that can participate collaboratively, such as helping identyfing missing loved ones. See this great site from “The Extraordinaries” http://www.beextra.org/haiti Joining a facebook group = who cares? Being socially useful in a spare 10 minutes by tagging Flickr photos of Haiti = priceless. Rob

  • caseychesh

    It's a good point. My company, Transparent Language, is making all of our Haitian Creole language learning software available (for free) to any and all relief volunteers. The tough part is getting it in their hands when they need it. RTs spreading the word about the resources available for the rescue workers is a start and has a direct purpose.

    The challenge is reaching the niche audience to support them and not distract from their #1 mission of saving lives.

    More info: http://www.byki.com/blog

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    would support the idea of aid grants, but I would also support the idea of having the people of Haiti standing and making a go of it, in their country. The answer to the world's problems is not to pile them into the United States, willy-nilly. It causes problems down the road, so, bad idea. A better idea, I think, would be to help the Haitians fix THEIR country to the point where they aren't considering abandoning it, or letting it be taken from them by gangs, dictators, or warlords or whathave you. To that end, their neighbors in the Dominican Republic should be assisting them with temporary refuge, until things like water and sewer and electrical service have been restored.

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    This is an interesting post and speaks to how you tweet with purpose. We were involved in helping Univision share its efforts and calls to action for its very successful “Unidos por Haití” (United for Haiti) program last night, which was broadcast in the US and 13 other countries in North and Latin America. People felt compelled to share the calls to action on Twitter and also felt compelled to discuss the benefit show with others on Twitter. The result was that for a group of people watching the show, they felt connected by following the #unidoshaiti stream and contributing. After a certain point, individual people will make their own of what they want to do with Twitter. Very hard to tell them what not to do after the connections get stronger and stronger, since everyone has their own personality and style on Twitter. It was an amazing event that touched the hearts of people who helped to spread the call to action.

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    And Chris Messina and others with technical skills or critique can help drive good intentions to purposeful, productive results.

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